Space Travel

Space Adventures Ltd is the only company in the world currently operating commercial orbital spaceflight and will be the first to launch clients using a new breed of lower cost suborbital spacecraft currently under development worldwide.

Whether your desire is to conduct science experiments, achieve what few have done before or simply enjoy the feeling of weightlessness while taking in the spectacular view, Space Adventures is your opportunity to discover one of life’s greatest secrets: the wonders of space.

Keen on travelling up to the space? Well, it's opened to the public and so far, 4 customers have taken the ride.

Program highlights:-
* Space Flight Training at the legendary Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, Russia
* Launch from the historic Baikonur Cosmodrome aboard a Soyuz-FG launch vehicle
* Eight days in space and live aboard the International Space Station (in collaboration with Russian Aviation and Space Agency (Rosaviakosmos) and Rocket Space Corporation Energia (RSC Energia)
* Approximately 120 orbits of the Earth (over 3 million miles traveled)
* Become one of the first 500 people ever to have flown in space
* Experience the vast untamed universe beyond Earth

Prior to cruising to space, you will be trained under their Spaceflight Training (Cosmonaut Training Overview):-
* One day Mini-Medical testing in Star City
* Centrifuge (launch to orbit insertion) Simulator Training
* Space Navigation using Star City’s one-of-a kind Planetarium and Simulator
* Sokol Space Suit Training
* Soyuz spacecraft simulator training under the guidance of actual spacecraft pilot trainers
* Spacewalk mission simulation in the neutral buoyancy tank.
* Land-Survival Training
* International Space Station Simulator Training
* MiG-25 Flight to the “Edge of Space” with one of Russia’s most experienced pilots
* MiG-29 “Space Shuttle Flight Profile” with one of Russia’s most experienced pilots
* Zero Gravity Flight (Optional)
Tags: Space Adventure, Space, Spacecraft, Suborbital, International Space Station, Science, Technology, Soyuz, Russia, Rosaviakosmos, RSC Energia

Visitation at the Desert Villages

One of the villages just at the foothill of a hill.

Local Sudanese young girls in their Eid Festival clothings.

Happy to see a foreigner taking their picture.

Old model of a bicycle still widely used in Sudan. I know how to ride a bike, just that it's not the right time.

A lecture has begun.

Oops! Am I in the wrong house? Where's my mommy?

It's their custom to slaugther an animal during this festival period in the midst of happiness with so many guests at their house. They did invite us to stay for a meal (goat dishes of course). Not compulsory though.

Cute girl!

The same goat where they are de-skinning it now.

Hee-haw! Hee-haw! Hee-haw!

It was making so much of noise, maybe was left out of the happiness in the surrounding.

The guy in white robe happens to be working at our site where, i think, he reports to our guy in red jacket.

Nice of the house owner to treat all of us to a bottle of Fanta Orange and Coke.

The baby was nicely wrapped up to avoid catching a cold during the winter season.

mountainous pictures, next change....


Tags: Journal, Life, Diary, Sudan, Village, Travel

Women's Lie

One day, a seamstress was sewing while sitting close to a river and her thimble fell into the river. When she cried out, the Lord appeared and asked, "My dear child, why are you crying?"

The seamstress replied that her thimble had fallen into the water and that she needed it to help her husband in making a living for their family. The Lord dipped his hand into the water and pulled up a golden thimble set with pearls. "Is this your thimble?" the Lord asked. The seamstress replied, "No." The Lord again dipped into the river. He held out a silver thimble ringed with sapphires. "Is this your thimble?" the Lord asked again. The seamstress replied, "No" The Lord reached down again and came up with a leather thimble. "Is this your thimble?" the Lord asked. The seamstress replied, "YES." The lord was pleased with the woman's honesty and gave her all three thimbles to keep and the seamstress went home happy.

Some years later, the seamstress was walking with her husband along the same riverbank and her husband fell into the river and disappeared under the water. When she cried out, the Lord again appeared and asked her, "Why are you crying?" "Oh Lord, my husband has fallen into the river!" The Lord went down into the water and came up with Mel Gibson. "Is this your husband?" the Lord asked. "Yes," cried the seamstress. The lord was furious. "YOU LIED! That is untrue!

The seamstress replied, "Oh, forgive me, my Lord. It is a misunderstanding. You see, if I had said 'no' to Mel Gibson, you would have come up with Tom Cruise. Then, if I said 'No' to him, you would have come up with my husband and had I then said 'yes' you would have given me all three. Lord, I'm not in the best of health and would not be able to take care of all three husbands, so that's why I said 'yes' to Mel Gibson."

The moral of this story is: WHENEVER A WOMAN LIES, IT'S FOR A GOOD AND HONORABLE REASON AND IN THE BEST INTEREST OF OTHERS. THAT'S MY STORY, AND I'M STICKING TO IT.

Tags: Jokes, Funny, Humour, Woman, Lie, Mel Gibson, Tom Cruise

Dog Buns

What dog buns??? Well, it's a dog with buns at its side.

Dogbuns is actually a costume made just right for a dog. So now it's really a hot dog. Cute?

The costume was initially made one for their dog in an annual parade and the response/feedback was good. Hence, out came the website and had been selling hot online, custome made according to sizes.

It cost around US$50. Order yours and I’m sure your dog will hate you for it!
Tags: Gadgets, Funny, Dogbuns, Hot Dog

Disaster

Similar scenario for the Soul Plane movie where they hired a pilot who said he has flying experience (only in games)....... Must have installed Microsoft software!
Tags: Funny, Humour, Cartoons, Airplane, Disaster

Kuala Lumpur's New Tourist Bus

* Latest * The Customer Service has followed up with another email on 7 Jan responding to my earlier email:-
----- Forwarded Message ----
From: inquiry inquiry@myhoponhopoff.com
To: Johnny Ong jonash1@yahoo.com
Sent: Sunday, January 7, 2007 8:05:02 PM
Subject: Web site Update
Dear Mr Ong,
We have rectified some of the problems on our website. The comment box fonts, submit button and ticket button have all been rectified. Pictures on stop 13,14,19 and 20 will be uploaded in a couple of days. We will also make the map downloading available very soon. We apologize again for the inconvenience caused to you and we welcome more comments from your goodself concerning this matter. Hoping to hear from you soon.
Regards
Customer service

The Customer Service has on 5 Jan responded to my email as follows:-
Dear Mr Johny Ong
Thank you for your comment and advice. We greatly appreciate it. Feedback from customers like you is vital in improving our service. We would not want to discourage people to give comments, infact we welcome them as feedback from customers and potential customers are very important to us in making sure we provide them good service. we will make sure that the fonts for the words will be enlarged, and all other complaints that you have made will be rectified. we will inform you via email once these have all been rectified. thanking you again for your kind advice.
Regards
Customer Service

Original Posting
Sadly to say, just 4 days into the Visit Malaysia Year 2007, complaints were there from tourists on the much awaited tourist bus that will bring tourists round Kuala Lumpur as stated in The Star newspaper. And some of the tourists literally waited for the bus as it was not punctual.
The Hop On-Hop Off has its own website too. When I click on other pages, for example Services, it took a few minutes to download. At this technology age, few minutes?????

When I intend to find out more on the Ticket, it has no response at all. So I went on to click Contact. Straight away, I wanted to write to them to comment on this few issues. When I started typing, the font in the Message box was so small and I'm very sure that many people will not be able to see what they were typing. Maybe it's a way to discourage people from commenting (esp. the negative ones, the lesser the better).

After finishing what I wanted to say, I clicked Submit............my my my.... can't work either. So I pasted the whole thing onto the email and emailed to them and said "Don't disappoint me by having this email rejected". Let's see how long they take to respond (still giving them a benefit of doubt with pun intended).

Apparently, this hop on hop off stuff is not new and it's being practiced at many major cities around the world - New York City / London / Paris / Dublin / Toronto / Turks & Caicos Islands / Sydney / Oslo / Vienna / Bangalore. Singapore and Dubai have this services for quite some time back also and all this countries have this services throughout the year and not wait for a particular year to have it.
Tags: Visit Malaysia Year 2007, Hop On Hop Off, Tourist, Travel, Leisure, Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur

Visitation at the Desert Villages

This is rattan materials being used to make a house or certain part of a house.

We were invited to go into one of the villagers' house. As you can see, they used the rattan to block the sunlight from shining into their small clay house.

The ceiling is mainly rattan and on top of the rattan is solid clay. Only 2 beds for a family of 6.

These are some of the clay brick being left to dry before laying it to build a house.

I tried to break with a karate chop and my hand almost came off. It's real hard.

My friend gave a thumb's up to the wall structure. It's clay too with some sticks in between. Quite solid but with one strong push, the wall could actually tumble down.

One house being constructed in this village (with clay bricks).

The madam of the house was serving us sweets and 1 of my colleague was surprised to see a Cadbury sweet there. Our ma'am said that she brought it to them when she visited her few months back.

Sheltering away from the heat.

Not really that hot as cool wind was still blowing softly.

Our ma'am with her close friends now. The madam of the house has a family of daugthers and if not mistaken, 2 of them were working faraway from whom. But not as far as we all guys/1 ma'am from our home in Malaysia.

Quite a well kept village.

Mode of transport within the village area. Natural air-cond for everybody.

We were heading to the hills after visiting the villages.

If this hill exist in Malaysia, it would be gone as quarry operations would be there to make quick money at the expense of the environment/nature.


More pictures on the surrounding of the hills as we get nearer ...............

Tags: Journal, Life, Diary, Sudan, Village, Desert